Tons of beer events will stuff the calendar around town in the days before and during GABF, from roaring mini-festivals of wild and sour beer to intimate meet-the-brewer dinners, from a Gospel brunch to one-off beers inspired by hikes.

Upslope’s latest is 7.6 percent alcohol by volume (provided by the brewery)

If you are looking for the poster beer for how far canned craft beer has come, consider the latest offering from Upslope Brewing Co.

The second in a limited series of specialty beers, Barrel Aged Brown Ale is rich and complex, the result of four months aging in Maryland-style rye whiskey barrels from small-batch Denver distillery Leopold Bros.

The 19.2 ounce can is tall, sleek and elegantly designed in silver and white with a dash of Upslope maroon. Nothing like a tallboy of swill.

Brewery co-founder Matt Cutter envisions his creation being stored in cellars and enjoyed months and even years from now as it matures and gains character. That’s right — a canned beer you can age.

A bock is really just a stronger lager, said Tim Matthews, head brewer at Oskar Blues who created the collaboration beer with Sierra Nevada in the recently released Beer Camp 12 pack.

Oskar Blues is one of 12 breweries from around the country that participated in the collaboration with craft beer giant Sierra Nevada. The 12 pack was released recently and Sierra Nevada is bringing a Beer Camp festival to Denver on July 25 as part of a whirlwind tour of seven cities around the country.

The beer that represents Colorado’s thriving craft beer scene is titled “CANfusion,” a rye bock with 7.2 percent ABV and 45 IBUs. “Bocks ferment clean and allow the hops to shine,” said Matthews. Hoppiness is not exactly the experience you get from Sierra Nevada beers.

The amber-colored beer is made with Steryrian Aurora hops from Eastern Europe and dry-hopped with an Australian hop called “Ella.” “That gives it a nice balance, an apricot feel,” said Matthews.Read more…

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A rolling national beer festival on wheels cruises into Denver July 25 for a party in Civic Center Park.

Beer Camp Across America will visit seven cities across the country and Denver is the third stop, bringing more than 200 craft beers from 100 breweries from Colorado, Kansas, Indiana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Utah and Wyoming. Each brewery is bringing up to two beers each. A complete list can be found here.

The event is to promote Sierra Nevada’s collaboration with 12 other breweries across the country to create a variety pack of beers that goes on sale this month. Breweries include Oskar Blues Brewery from Longmont that brewed a rye bock; Firestone Walker Brewing from California that brewed a hoppy pilsner; and Bell’s Brewery in Michigan that brewed an imperial dark ale. Oskar Blues contribution is one of two beers that is in a can.

A total of 145 Colorado Brewers Guild member brewers collaborated on a special brew to be released during next week’s 2014 Craft Brewers Conference — Centennial Pale Ale that features 100 percent ingredients from Colorado.

Centennial Pale Ale is the first American craft beer to use the Ball Corp.’s new Dynamark Variable Printing Technology. The print will create a collection of cans that will spell CBS Colorado 2014 when lined up.

We’re talking malt from Colorado Malting Company, centennial hops from several area farms and yeast from the Brewing Science Institute from Woodland Park. The beer was brewed Feb. 24 at Oskar Blues Brewery in Longmont. Strange Brewery brewed test batches at their Denver brewery.

The end result was packaged into 19.2-ounce single-serve cans first introduced by the Broomfield-based Ball Corp.

The cans will be available at the convention but the beer also will be found around town during next week’s conference, said Steve Kurowski, spokesman for the Brewers Guild.

Longmont brewery Oskar Blues says its imminent release of a canned nitrogenated beer, Old Chub Nitro, has received nothing but support from longtime neighbor and close collaborator Left Hand Brewing, which is seeking to register a trademark for “Nitro” as a term for beer.

The craft breweries, two pillars of Colorado’s craft beer scene, are emphasizing their long history of cooperation dating to the late 1990s, from selling each other’s products to working on flood relief together to friendly kickball games and hot dog-eating contests.

Longmont-based Left Hand Brewing, the first and so far only U.S. craft brewery to bottle a nitrogenated beer, is seeking to trademark the term “Nitro,” a move with industry-wide implications that already has drawn potential opposition from the country’s largest brewing company.

Left Hand applied for the federal trademark in September, attempting to stake exclusive rights to the term for beer.

Anheuser-Busch then jumped into the fray, asking for and receiving an extension to file opposition, according to U.S. Patent and Trademark Office records. The brewing giant – represented by Denver law firm Holland & Hart – has until June 18 to oppose Left Hand’s trademark application.

Consolidation, quality, expansion of larger craft brewers and more will all play a part in reaching the Brewers Association’s ambitious goal (Helen H. Richardson, The Denver Post)

The number was put on the table. It sounded good. It was big, ambitious and bold. Or crazy and unrealistic.

When the guiding lights of American craft brewing met last weekend at the St. Julien Hotel in Boulder to sharpen their vision and undoubtedly drink a lot of good beer, the suggestion was raised that craft brewers should try to claim 20 percent of the U.S. beer market by 2020.

The Two22 Brew tap room is technically in Centennial but it’s often referred to as south Aurora (provided by the brewery).

Stories about new breweries typically do not begin like this: “My dad died in a plane crash when I was 17.”

Yet that dark day in the summer of 2004 when Leo Schuster’s twin-engine Beech Baron aircraft crashed in Fort Collins after an unexplained engine failure, killing the Loveland businessman and two other men, is very much part of the creation story of Two22 Brew.

Cult beer Pliny the Younger has begun its annual migration to Colorado.

Colorado is one of a precious few states that receive Russian River beer and thus receives an annual reward of an allocation of the out-of-this-world triple IPA from the Santa Rosa, Calif., craft brewery.

Our new iPad app serves as a guide to metro Denver’s bountiful breweries, beer bars and bottle shops, the holy trinity of craft beer enjoyment for followers and fans. Download the app for iPad .
Next time you head for a beer in Boulder, don’t forget your friend, Beers of Boulder and Boulder County, an iPad app from the Daily Camera. Download the app for iPad .

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In Colorado, our pint glasses overflow with excellent beer. New breweries, new batches, festivals every other week. How lucky are we? First Drafts is The Denver Post's beer blog aimed at helping you keep tabs on the state's ever-expanding craft beer culture. We offer a mash of news, event coverage, homegrown stories, tasting notes and tips to help you imbibe. Expert drinker or homebrewer? Let us know what you're loving about Colorado's beer scene. Not sure exactly what a firkin is? No worries, let us be your guide. Go ahead. Belly up and drink it in!